Serbs prepare assembly and declaration for survival of Serbian people: Porfirije met with Vučić and Dodik  

Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church met in Belgrade with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Milorad Dodik, President of the Republika Srpska entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, after his return from Moscow.

In a press release from the Presidency, it was announced that “On 5/6 May, a large Easter Assembly of Serbia and Republika Srpska will be held in Belgrade and other parts of the country.

This decision, according to Vucic’s office, was agreed after several hours of talks with Dodik and Porfirije.

“Important decisions will be taken at this Assembly on the survival of the Serbian nation, its economic progress, the preservation of the Serbian language and Cyrillic script, and the common cultural heritage,” the message said.

The new Government of Serbia and the Government of Republika Srpska will, they add, “prepare a declaration and possibly other general legal acts, which will be submitted in the same text to the Assemblies of Serbia and Republika Srpska for adoption”.

Porfirije, they added, “informed them of the gravity of the political situation in which the entire Serbian people find themselves and asked His Holiness for the blessing and support of the Serbian Orthodox Church”. We will inform the public about all other details in the coming period,” the message reads.

We recall that Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church was in Russia the previous day, when the citizens of that country voted in the presidential elections, in which Vladimir Putin is expected to win new mandates.

Officially, the reason for his visit was to say a prayerful farewell and to attend the funeral of Bishop Anthony of Moravia, Vicar of the Serbian Patriarchate and Elder of the Sub-county of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Moscow, who died on 11 March in the Russian capital.

In Moscow, Porfirije thanked Patriarch Kirill for “the love and attention he personally showed to Blessed Sovereign Anthony, and above all for the support and help they gave him during his treatment”, the Serbian Orthodox Church said.

“The conversation underlined the mutual satisfaction of the fraternal cooperation between the two Churches and the two peoples of the same faith. Particular attention was paid to the challenges facing the Orthodox Church,” the message said.

Recall that Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, is a staunch supporter of Russian President Putin. As a sign of his loyalty, he has supported the war against Ukraine from the very beginning, saying that death in battle (to a soldier) “washes away all sins”.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which portrays Russians and Ukrainians as “one people”, accused “foreign influences” of “causing conflict between them”./The Geopost/